Technology and software solutions

There is a tendency when faced with a potentially serious threat to take extreme measures in life. Cybersecurity is no different. Many firms are looking for a quick fix, even if it comes with a high price tag. However, should managers take a more balanced and common sense approach to tackling the issue of cybersecurity, before spending vital operating capital on expensive individual solutions?
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With cyber risks increasing year-on-year, and regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (`SEC') taking an increasingly prominent role in assessing the preparedness of broker-dealers and registered investment advisors, establishing cybersecurity best practices is not only useful; it's a necessity.
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Cybercrime could extract up to 20 per cent of the global economic value created by the Internet through fraud and espionage, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Following last year's Cyber-Security Risk Alert, the SEC's Division of Investment Management released guidance this April to help investment managers prevent external attacks.
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Hedge funds are an integral part of the financial fabric, and, whilst they may not have the same capital profile as large investment banks, the Bank of England is advising that they strengthen their resilience in order to recover quickly from attacks.
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Today's world has never been more interwoven. Cybersecurity risks have grown exponentially as global businesses have become more integrated with counterparties and system architectures have grown in complexity. In the opinion of Gerhard Grueter, co-founder of Lawson Conner, a market leader in compliance solutions for the investment fund industry, the topic is only going to get bigger.
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A survey of 56 market participants carried out by swaps technology provider 4sight and consultancy The Field Effect has revealed that 32 per cent of participants are currently booking Synthetic Financing transactions such as Total Return Swaps and Portfolio Swaps. A further 18 per cent plan to in the near future. Firms surveyed included a range of tier one and tier two investment banks and asset managers.
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CHAPS, the UK’s same day electronic payment system, has added BNP Paribas as a Direct Participant. BNP Paribas can now directly send and receive irrevocable, guaranteed sterling payments with same day finality, rather than through a third-party.
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To help overcome the increased reporting burden faced by private equity managers, SEI has developed an automated end-client reporting capability. It comes at a time when global PE firms are having to adapt to regulation in the form of AIFMD and Annex IV reporting, not to mention a desire by LPs to derive greater transparency from their PE allocations.
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A couple of years ago, the title Chief Information Security Officer, or CISO for short, was a foreign concept within the hedge fund community. The winds have changed, however, as hedge funds become increasingly targeted by cyber hackers, causing many to hire a CISO to uphold the network integrity of the firm.
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Lanware has been awarded a three year contract to provide its cloud-based technology outsourcing services to hedge fund Finisterre Capital, part of Principal Global Investors (PGI) who took a majority stake in Finisterre in 2011.
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Quite aptly, its design logo could be a leaf or a drop of water. Simmons & Simmons, one of the hedge fund industry’s leading law firms, has developed a new product LaunchPlus which provides the water needed for new hedge funds to flourish and grow; aqua vitae as it were.
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International law firm Simmons & Simmons has unveiled the first dedicated online resource for start-up hedge fund managers, LaunchPlus, which supports emerging managers in the launch and operation of a new hedge fund management business.
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On Wednesday 22 April, the House of Representatives passed a new cybersecurity bill – the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (PCNA) – to allow file sharing between government intelligence agencies and private companies and raise the overall awareness of hacking.
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Deutsche Börse will develop and operate the technical infrastructure and various IT applications for a joint European intraday power market within the framework of the European Cross Border Intraday Initiative (XBID).
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In today’s increasingly complex and evolving regulatory environment, fund managers expect their providers to have a sophisticated risk management framework that meets global, regional and local standards.
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Cybersecurity issues have existed as long as the internet. What seems to have changed in the last 18 months is not only that the nature of the breaches has become more sophisticated, but also the fact that hedge funds have become a much bigger target.
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Trevor Chisholm, Director of Alternative Investments at Intralinks has appeared in a new video on Asset TV. The interview discusses how managers can achieve transparency whilst still maintaining control.
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Once a fund manager has got the middle office infrastructure in place – the hardware as it were – the logical next step is to work out how best to utilise it. How can the flow of data – and flow of data is not simply the software – be used in a smart, intelligent fashion to bring incremental gains to the way that the manager runs its business?
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The introduction of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) into European law in 2013 was part of a series of moves towards greater regulatory oversight of the hedge fund industry in recent years. In our survey, we asked hedge fund managers for their views on the effect of these new regulations on the industry as well as their expectations about the impact of the AIFMD on their firm over the next 12 months, the results of which are analyzed in this extract from the Preqin Special Report: AIFMD in the Hedge Fund Industry – 2015 Update.
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A couple of years ago, the title Chief Information Security Officer, or CISO for short, was a foreign concept within the hedge fund community. The winds have changed, however, as hedge funds become increasingly targeted by cyber hackers, causing many to hire a CISO to uphold the network integrity of the firm.
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Sovereign wealth funds, though small in number and secretive in nature, wield considerable influence as investors as a result of their sizeable assets under management. This extract is taken from Preqin’s latest report which features exclusive content from the 2015 Preqin Sovereign Wealth Fund Review.
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Mergers and acquisitions in recent years have changed the face of hedge fund administration. Big custodial banks are likely to dominate the HFA space in years to come, forming one part of a barbell with a number of well-run, well-capitalised independent HFAs on the other end. This report examines the implications for both hedge funds and their administrators... »

The North American private debt industry has seen substantial growth in assets over the last decade. This extract from the Preqin Special Report: Private Debt in North America looks at the current state of private debt fundraising and funds currently in market.
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